Over the past several years, candidates affiliated with or endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have won a growing number of Democratic primaries and general elections across the country, challenging establishment Democrats and expanding the socialist movement’s influence. Building on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s historic 2018 congressional victory, DSA candidates have won seats in the New York legislature, while other socialist candidates gained local offices in cities across the U.S.
The movement achieved its most significant breakthrough in 2025, when Zohran Mamdani defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary and went on to win the general election. That momentum has continued in 2026 with DSA-backed candidates winning congressional primaries in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, and Michigan—along with mayoral candidates in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Louisville, Denver and Providence, Rhode Island. These successes reflect growing support for DSA candidates who advocate for affordable housing, universal healthcare, stronger labor rights, and higher taxes on the wealthy.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Paul Heideman, author of “Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos,” who discusses his recent Jacobin magazine article, “Where Are the Democratic Socialists of America Going?” which examines how the group is successfully navigating the U.S. electoral system, but continues to face considerable challenges in rooting itself in the U.S. working class.
PAUL HEIDEMAN: I think DSA’s success can really not be overestimated. Today, DSA has 120,000 members or so, which is bigger than any socialist group in the U.S. since the old socialist party of Eugene Debs. So DSA has really risen to that level of prominence and importance in American politics. It’s really succeeded in leaving a mark on the American political landscape in a way that I think no socialist group has done since the Socialist party of the early 20th century. And like you said, that’s been through this strategy of contesting Democratic party primaries and winning some very, very prominent victories in that realm that’s done so, that’s kind of forced the entire political spectrum to take notice.
SCOTT HARRIS: Paul, you make the important point in your article that there’s a disconnect between the Democratic Socialists of America and the working class, i.e. labor unions in the country and working families and communities all over the U.S. Explain a little bit about that disconnect and why you feel it’s so important that that’s addressed within DSA sooner rather than later.
PAUL HEIDEMAN: One way to understand this is to think about the kind of socialist and communist political culture that existed in the United States basically before World War II, which is that on the Lower East Side of New York, which is an overwhelmingly working class neighborhood at the time, it was a neighborhood of sweatshops and factory workers, there were entire buildings, entire blocks where every family had a member in the Socialist party. Socialist politics at that time were deeply embedded in the lives of working class Americans. And McCarthyism and the anti-communist purge after World War II really shattered that link. And by driving people underground, making people burn their old socialist newspapers, hide it all to try and avoid the repression, it really broke that link. And since then, American socialism has struggled to root itself in the American working class to the same extent that was obtained before World War II.
And one of the reasons that’s so important is that a basic kind of socialist premise is that people’s politics in some sense follow from their material interests, what they need to do in order to reproduce their position in society. And DSA has been very, very successful in recruiting layers of the lower spectrum of the professions, people like teachers and nurses, people who often have, or tech workers, people who have often a decent salary, make a decent living, but are not getting rich by any means, who are you might think of as somewhat of the lower end of the middle class in the United States. And there’s a tension that comes from that. First of all, people are often loathe to support tax increases on themselves. And if we want the kind of welfare state, if Americans want the kind of welfare state that Europe has, it’s going to have to be financed in part with taxes on the middle class.
And if a group is only based in the middle class, it’s probably not going to fight for that in the same way as if it has a broad base among the working class. And so DSA has had a lot of trouble in recruiting manual workers, retail workers, the really big layers of the American working class that are also some of the people who work in some of the most exploitative jobs in our society. DSA has not succeeded so far in expanding into those layers. And so until DSA is able to expand into that area, I think there are going to be limits to what it can achieve, even as it already has reshaped American politics in some ways.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Paul Heideman (19:54) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack or social media, subscribe here.
